PUERPERAL FEVER 245 



That such series of cases have been observed in this 

 country, and in this neighborhood, I proceed to show. 



In Dr. Francis's " Notes to Denman's Midwifery " a 

 passage is cited from Dr. Hosack in which he refers to 

 certain puerperal cases which proved fatal to several lying-in 

 women, and in some of which the disease was supposed 

 to be conveyed by the accoucheurs themselves. 10 



A writer in the " New York Medical and Physical Jour- 

 nal " for October, 1829, in speaking of the occurrence of 

 puerperal fever confined to one man's practice, remarks: 

 " We have known cases of this kind occur, though rarely, 

 in New York." 



I mention these little hints about the occurrence of such 

 cases partly because they are the first I have met with in 

 American medical literature, but more especially because 

 they serve to remind us that behind the fearful array of 

 published facts there lies a dark list of similar events, 

 unwritten in the records of science, but lon^ remembered 

 by many a desolated fireside. 



Certainly nothing can be more open and explicit than the 

 account given by Dr. Peirson, of Salem, of the cases seen by 

 him. In the first nineteen days of January, 1829, he had five 

 consecutive cases of puerperal fever, every patient he at- 

 tended being attacked, and the three first cases proving 

 fatal. In March of the same year he had two moderate 

 cases, in June, another case, and in July, another, which 

 proved fatal. " Up to this period," he remarks, " I am 

 not informed that a single case had occurred in the prac- 

 tice of any other physician. Since that period I have had 

 no fatal case in my practice, although I have had several 

 dangerous cases. I have attended in all twenty cases of 

 this disease, of which four have been fatal. I am not aware 

 that there has been any other case in the town of distinct 

 puerperal peritonitis, although I am willing to admit my 

 information may be very defective on this point. I have 

 been told of some ' mixed cases,' and ' morbid affections 

 after delivery.' " u 



In the " Quarterly Summary of the Transactions of the 



* Denman's Midwifery, p. 673, third Am. ed. 

 u Remark t on Puerperal Fever, pp. 12 and 13. 



